Thread: CoronaVirus ==> Empty Shelves

Originally Posted by Chesand

Only 8 more posts to reach 1000 in this thread. I am sure you can do it guys.

If the moderators weren't paralyzed with laughter at the antics, and betting on what they think is going to happen next, they would be deleting posts from this thread faster than we could post and we would never reach 1000.

From the Guardian this morning:
New study sheds light on coronavirus infection mechanism | World news | The Guardian

An excerpt:
A detailed analysis of the virus’s structure shows that the club-like “spikes” that it uses to establish infections latch on to human cells about four times more strongly than those on the related Sars coronavirus, which killed hundreds of people in a 2002 epidemic.

The finding suggests that coronavirus particles that are inhaled through the nose or mouth have a high chance of attaching to cells in the upper respiratory tract, meaning that relatively few are needed for an infection to gain a foothold.


Presumably that is what makes this virus so much more contagious than others.

Originally Posted by doug3030

Totally agree - play with the available data to your heart's content, but don't kid yourself that doing so will make a single shred of difference. You have nothing like the complete dataset to play with.

Just like anything else said in this thread ?

Originally Posted by BobL

Just like anything else said in this thread ?

Well the Climate Change thread didn't stop climate change, the Bushfire thread didn't stop bushfires (but hang on, I think they were the same thread).

And the Covid-19 thread hasn't stopped the bitching.

Originally Posted by Tonyz

research ahh yes research, proves everything.
Some years ago one of the Adelaide Unis proved that supermarket/deli meat pies were the most nutritional thing you could possibly eat.....simply by crunching the information they had and using what they wanted to their advantage...some drongos actually believed it and stocked up on meat pies.

Every now and then, people in academe write "papers" manipulating data or even creating it to "prove" a concept which is totally ridiculous. The topic and conclusions are so ridiculous that their colleagues see as a part joke and part skiting by the author that they are clever enough to produce it.

The point is that it's a joke!

mick

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

From the Guardian this morning:
New study sheds light on coronavirus infection mechanism | World news | The Guardian

An excerpt:
A detailed analysis of the virus’s structure shows that the club-like “spikes” that it uses to establish infections latch on to human cells about four times more strongly than those on the related Sars coronavirus, which killed hundreds of people in a 2002 epidemic.

The finding suggests that coronavirus particles that are inhaled through the nose or mouth have a high chance of attaching to cells in the upper respiratory tract, meaning that relatively few are needed for an infection to gain a foothold.

Presumably that is what makes this virus so much more contagious than others.

Hummmmm. I'm not convinced this is as significant as they make out and could be a case of typical scientists blowing their own trumpet and elbowing for space in a very crowded field, after all they have just used a multi million $ machine and may need to justify its use. Or maybe the research is a more complicated than a journalist can cope with.

To give them their due the authors of the article also do say

The study only used fragments of the virus spike and host ACE-2 protein, and this is still only a theory,” he added. “The exact implications will need validation through further experimentation.”

In practical terms a lone virus is not a little ultra poisonous sticky ballbearing that rattles its way through a respiratory tract via a series of collisions and eventually impacts and sticks to the sides of the respiratory tract. Lone viruses are so small they behave much more like an air molecule than a bullet. Like most air molecules most lone viruses will not touch the sides of a respiratory tract - they will be breathed in and then back out again often many many times. Lone viruses can live on surfaces but die rapidly in free air, and a lone virus still has some chance of being taken out by a healthy immune system when it enters the human body.

We are really lucky this is the case because lone viruses go straight through virtually all face masks and if they were that sticky all medical staff attending COVID19 patients would be infected. We know the infection and death rates for these people are high but fortunately most survive otherwise we'd be in deep doodoo.

By far the most likely source of infection is determined by the viral load on and the size and type of the substrate the viral load is riding on. Bigger water droplets or skin and other dust particles are much more likely to rattle their way into the respiratory system and strike and stick to the sides of the respiratory system. So in practice it's the stickiness of the substrate that matters much more in the first instance than the stickiness of the virus.
If stickiness of the virus was significant it could also mean it would be harder for the virus to get out - this might even mean it could cancel the stickiness in factor.

Originally Posted by ian

...some comments on the attached file

Thanks for those observations, Ian.

Yes, the confidence levels are very wide, but to be expected when some variables are unknown and where the currently available known data set is small or of doubtful application, eg some data is already known for Italy and Spain on the up curve but that data may not be as applicable to the populations demographics of the USA or for that matter in Australia.

As we know, no model accurately predicts the outcomes they attempt to model, but I will be interesting to see how closely this one does. Won't have to wait long to do that with only 15 days to the predicted peak.

And, yes, the model will be perfect for Covid-19 when adjusted in hindsight...

No doubt this pandemic will be the most closely studied in history, which will hopefully make us better prepared for future pandemics but then the next novel virus will come along with its unique characteristics and we will be guessing what impact that will have on us and asking the modellers again to give us their best estimates and projections (whatever the confidence level). Since the decline of oracles and soothsayers, modellers and their associates seem to be the best we have for that.

Originally Posted by Tccp123

Reminds me of this old story...

The Parable of 10 Men in a Bar

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes,it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ‘Since you are all such good customers,’ he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.’ Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.
But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100%savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
‘I only got a dollar out of the $20,’ declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, ‘but he got $10!’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man. ‘I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I got!’
‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man. ‘Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!’
‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison. ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!’
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that,is how our tax system works!!
The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

Stupid parable - it has a fatal flaw.

The "10th man" will never pay his 60%. In fact he will just use his lawyers, tax accountants, trusts, offshore companies and banks domiciled in Ireland, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, the Caribbean etc etc to ensure that he looks just like the first 4 or 5 blokes in the list. To see the extent of this just look at Mossack Fonseca - one small law firm in one minor tax haven. over 200,000 companies implicated and tens of thousands of people from heads of state to low profile individuals, all avoiding contributing to the societies where this wealth is stripped.

You want to keep believing in fairy-tales - go on - but trickle down economics is an abject failure - proven many times over.

Originally Posted by RossM

Stupid parable - it has a fatal flaw.

The "10th man" will never pay his 60%. In fact he will just use his lawyers, tax accountants, trusts, offshore companies and banks domiciled in Ireland, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, the Caribbean etc etc to ensure that he looks just like the first 4 or 5 blokes in the list. To see the extent of this just look at Mossack Fonseca - one small law firm in one minor tax haven. over 200,000 companies implicated and tens of thousands of people from heads of state to low profile individuals, all avoiding contributing to the societies where this wealth is stripped.

You want to keep believing in fairy-tales - go on - but trickle down economics is an abject failure - proven many times over.

It must be a curse to be poor

Originally Posted by RossM

Stupid parable - it has a fatal flaw.

The "10th man" will never pay his 60%. In fact he will just use his lawyers, tax accountants, trusts, offshore companies and banks domiciled in Ireland, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, the Caribbean etc etc to ensure that he looks just like the first 4 or 5 blokes in the list. To see the extent of this just look at Mossack Fonseca - one small law firm in one minor tax haven. over 200,000 companies implicated and tens of thousands of people from heads of state to low profile individuals, all avoiding contributing to the societies where this wealth is stripped.

You want to keep believing in fairy-tales - go on - but trickle down economics is an abject failure - proven many times over.

Your reply has a fatal flaw in that the parable is on PAYG tax to which there are many example where this applies, before even looking at the incomes of directors,doctors, lawyers etc just look at the plain old mine workers and the big tax dollars they pay.
The companies be they offshore or here are paying a flat rate of tax regardless of the income

Just saying.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by RossM

Stupid parable - it has a fatal flaw.

The "10th man" will never pay his 60%. In fact he will just use his lawyers, tax accountants, trusts, offshore companies and banks domiciled in Ireland, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, the Caribbean etc etc to ensure that he looks just like the first 4 or 5 blokes in the list. To see the extent of this just look at Mossack Fonseca - one small law firm in one minor tax haven. over 200,000 companies implicated and tens of thousands of people from heads of state to low profile individuals, all avoiding contributing to the societies where this wealth is stripped.

You want to keep believing in fairy-tales - go on - but trickle down economics is an abject failure - proven many times over.

Your reply has a fatal flaw in that the parable is on PAYG tax to which there are many example where this applies, before even looking at the incomes of directors,doctors, lawyers etc just look at the plain old mine workers and the big tax dollars they pay.
The companies be they offshore or here are paying a flat rate of tax regardless of the income

Just saying.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

What are the characteristics that make it so much more contagious then?

BINGO !

FenceFurniture made post #1,000. Highly appropriate. OP.

Originally Posted by Tccp123

It must be a curse to be poor

Originally Posted by Tccp123

In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

When are you leaving?

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

BINGO !

FenceFurniture made post #1,000.

¿Que?

Originally Posted by RossM

You want to keep believing in fairy-tales - go on - but trickle down economics is an abject failure - proven many times over.

...and if you're going to quote technical terms (i.e. trickle down economics) you should probably have some idea of what it means